Tag Archive: railways

Knowetop is an area of Motherwell, close to Dalzell House. It features, amongst other locations, Knowetop Primary School, Our Lady’s High School, Modyrvale Health Centre and Firpark Stadium, home of Motherwell FC.

Fir Park is easy – it’s built on the old part of Dalzell Estate where there actually was a plantation of firs. Very straightforward 🙂

Modyrvale is one of the earliest written versions of the placename, Motherwell. Why is was given to the Health Centre is at present unknown.

Knowetop itself was once not much more than a row of cottages. Few of the current buildings appear on the 19th century 25″ Ordnance Survey map, but I noticed that a branch of the main railway line curved through it. So I looked at the modern map to look for clues to where it had run and realised that Knowetop Avenue now follows the same line. The line itself ran to Parkhead Colliery. From the maps I can find, the mineral railway branch vanished between 1914-1938.

Apart from the match of the routes on the map, you’d never know that a railway was once here.

The wonderful remains of Stoneymeadow Viaduct, which used to carry the railway line from Glasgow to High Blantyre via East Kilbride. I first learned about these through the Hidden Glasgow forum. When I mentioned them to my Dad, who grew up in High Blantyre, he told me that climbing one of the pillars was a rite of passage for local kids when he was wee.